My last event before ’24 Nats was the Grissom (Peru) Tour in August where my performance was a little strange. Day one I had good first and second runs which placed me 3rd, the last trophy position. I was thrilled! The drivers in first and second were known-quantity, very fast drivers who were 2nd & 14th of 56 in CS at Nats the year before. Run three I was significantly slower, but still barely hanging on to 3rd on the strength of run 2.

Day 2 I was slow all three runs and didn’t really know why, except more mistakes seemed to be creeping in than usual. I slipped to fourth. No first national trophy for the Cayman.

At the time I attributed it to the Clark/Teller/Clark(nee King)/King brain trust that I was competing against. It was Will King that relieved me of that 3rd place trophy. I figured they had all analyzed data together and found where he could get faster and dust off this pesky Cayman. I felt like asking them to review my data too. They’re all such nice bunch, who knows, they might have done it!

The next event I drove was Nats the first week of September. Here’s a pic of my co-driver and I:

Unfortunately, I was disappointed in my finish position of 27 out of 59, right about mid-pack and 11 spots out of the trophies. I easily found mistakes in my best runs that, if eliminated, would have put me close to the trophies, but not quite there.

Meanwhile, Will King, my nemesis at Grissom, ran fantastic and captured 9th.

The rest of the year my local performances were similarly disappointing. After paxing 6th, 7th and 8th overall (of ~110 drivers at each) in three earlier events before the Chicago and Grissom Tours I ended the year with four events where I averaged 15th pax. Something seemed to be off.

Then Stephen Fehr sent me this picture he had taken at Nats:

Though I’m not sure exactly where this is on the course, my initial reaction was that the car was rolling too much. I started thinking about going stiffer with the bumpstops.

After Nats I’d gotten the front B6 struts revalved to my spec, leaving the rears for later. I wanted to make sure my numbers worked. I immediately felt more front grip. Then, when I was ready to have the rears revalved my local guy was unable to accommodate due to health issues. Eventually I contacted Chuck Mathews in Iowa to do the job and disassembled the rear struts.

This is what I found:

The first donut on each side was torn and squished down in among the other two inside the tube of the inverted-design, Bilstein B6 struts. The other two from each side are also deformed, having been twisted on the shaft. Each of the plastic washers (not shown) that I’d put in between the donuts and at the top and bottom of the stack were also twisted or bent. Houston, we have a problem.

I took the front struts apart and found everything pristine inside both.

So, at some point, maybe the third run, Day 1 at Grissom, the rear bumpstop stacks had failed in a way that should have seriously compromised the balance of the car and also allow more roll than before. This is clear if you realize that the bumpstop stacks are approximately two times as stiff as the steel springs. Or, at least they are when working correctly.

I think I know why it happened and how to fix it. While Chuck is revalving the rears I’m re-creating both front and rear bumpstop stacks to be stable and even some stiffer. I’m looking forward to the start of the season!